RECIFE, Brazil (AP) — Members of Brazilian Indigenous groups, friends and family members gathered Friday to mourn Bruno Pereira, an expert on Indigenous peoples who was killed with a British journalist during a trip to the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
His body was to be cremated following the ceremony.
Pereira, who was on leave from Brazilian government agency for Indigenous affairs, and reporter Dom Phillips were allegedly killed by a fisherman on June 5, the day they disappeared in the Javari Valley region, close to Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia.
Members of Xukuru Indigenous group sang mourning songs close to Pereira’s sealed casket during the ceremony in Recife.
Police investigators said last week the bodies of the two men were found in deep into the forest, where they were taken by their killer. Police have arrested three people in connection with the crime.
Pereira had been trying to help Indigenous groups of the Javari Valley create a 350-kilometer (220-mile) trail marking the southwestern border of their territory to help protect it from encroachment by ranchers and other outsiders.
He was helping Phillips during a reporting trip to the region when they were attacked. The journalist, whose funeral was scheduled for Sunday in in Rio de Janeiro, was writing a book on Amazon preservation.
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